In recent years, network apparatuses are generally utilized, and many personal computers (to be referred to as PCs hereinafter) and printers are connected to a network. In such network environment, print job control systems in various forms can be established to efficiently print. A known example of the print job control system is a system (distributed printing system) which temporarily spools a print job for a document having a large number of pages or a document requiring a large number of copies, and distributes and outputs the print job to a plurality of printers for pages or copies in order to shorten the printing time.
Another known example is a system (color/monochrome distributed printing system) which outputs one document having color and monochrome pages by distributing color pages to a color printer and monochrome pages to a monochrome printer in order to reduce the printing cost and shorten the printing time.
There are also known a system (broadcast printing system) which simultaneously transmits one document by one printing designation to a plurality of printers and prints the document, and a system (“redirect on error” printing system) which automatically switches a printer when an error occurs in a printer which has transmitted a print job.
Printing settings in each printer are cumbersome in such print job control system comprised of a plurality of printers connected to a network. Thus, each printer in the system is generally so constituted as to operate on the basis of printing designation from one virtual printer (group printer driver). The user suffices to perform printing settings to only the group printer driver (printing utility). There is also known a technique of reflecting an OR/AND arithmetic result based on the functions of printers in the user interface (UI) of a virtual printer adopting distributed printing serving as a virtual job, and enabling settings for a plurality of printers.
Details of this technique are disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-290625.
In addition to distributed printing, virtual jobs cope with various output methods such as color/monochrome distributed printing, broadcast printing, and redirect printing. When virtual printer UI control complying with conventionally known rules is executed for various virtual jobs and corresponding virtual printers, a convenient UI which fully considers the feature of each virtual job cannot be provided.
For example, a “redirect on error” printing system has a plurality of printers as candidates used in redirection. If only common settings can be done for all member printers through a group printer driver setting UI, the features of a member printer used first cannot be maximized.